


Bedside Manner

by Kei_LS



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Drugging Food, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Sassy Heero Yuy, Sex for Favors/Bartering, Some Humor, all of that is very lightly touched on/implied, all of the sex actually depicted in the fic is fully consensual, and between Heero and Trowa, mentions of Episode Zero canon, not edited, of uncooperative patient heero, sassy Trowa Barton, snarky Trowa Barton, to be clear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-23
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-06-10 06:23:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6943411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kei_LS/pseuds/Kei_LS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the prompt: “Trowa being snarky to a comatose Heero. I need it. I need the fanfiction. Now. (Then they fu- I mean uh)” A snarky Trowa at coma!Heero’s bedside, followed by dumb banter that only gets a little heavy in some of its implications, and then sex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bedside Manner

**Author's Note:**

> The warnings are in the tags. But in case those were ignored.  
> Warnings: Mention of drugging food (for uncooperative not-so-comatose!Heero); implied underage rape (in that the consent is questionable and sex is used for bartering); mentions of Episode Zero canon for Trowa (the merc Captain who as far as I remember is called Captain, I didn’t want to dig up the book). Possible canon divergence beyond the pairing because I didn’t feel like looking up where they were for certain events, or how long Heero was in a coma. (That’s the biggest one actually) Also vague time-skips.

“You are the laziest Gundam pilot I know.” Trowa accuses, huffing as he wets the rag he’s been using strictly for this purpose and gently cleaning around the bandages he’d painstakingly wrapped around the unconscious body. It’s become something of a routine now, because aside from not wanting to have to deal with the stench of an unwashed comatose teenager wasting away in his trailer it wouldn’t do the boy’s faltering health any good to lie in sweat and filth.

Not that Cathy agreed.

His life had been much simpler when she hadn’t known his preference, honestly.

“You don’t wash yourself, you don’t eat, and I bet you wouldn’t even know what day it was if you didn’t have someone around to tell you.” It’s true, so Trowa doesn’t feel particularly bad about pointing it out. He’d expected he was going to have to dig a grave when he’d picked Heero up out of the snow, his surprise when he’d found a pulse. He’d apologized to the still body later, once he’d gone through a ton of fucking effort to set up a decent living situation for the at-home comatose. Mostly because he figured travel via Heavyarms’ hand wasn’t the comfiest of solutions.

Then he’d realized Heero had more problems than blowing himself up and falling out of a cockpit to land head-first on a very thick sheet of ice. Problems like malnutrition, for one, and frostbite, for another which, okay he could probably pin that on the falling into ice and then laying in a freezing cold metal hand but if the guy would just wear a pair of _pants_ and a decent shirt he might not have had so many goddamn problems.

Trowa had been really worried about the frostbite.

Catherine had suggested cutting off the afflicted limbs. She’d been unrepentant when he’d pointed out that it would defeat the purpose of saving him if he couldn’t actually move around on the off chance he decided the world was worth sticking around in.

Sometimes, Trowa thinks he might actually love her. He’d still convinced her it was a mess neither of them wanted to clean up.

Heero’s body had nearly failed that night. Ungrateful bastard.

“All I’m saying is the least you could do is show a little appreciation,” Trowa grumbled, wrapping an arm around Heero’s shoulders and pulling him forward to swipe across his back. Heero’s breaths are soft puffs of air against his neck like this, and Trowa ignores it with the steadfast professionalism of a medic. He doesn’t _want_ to but he does.

“And that’s another thing,” he’s careful when he lays Heero back down. No doubt Heero will start bleeding or something equally asinine if Trowa so much as nudges his head against anything that isn’t a pillow, touchy brat. “You should know that you’re ruining the foundations of my beliefs.”

There are plenty of things Trowa can explain with using that. Trowa has learned plenty as a mercenary, most of it unpleasant, and much more as a mechanic, most of that interesting. He’d thought he knew everything there was to know about being a soldier, and being a Gundam pilot besides. He understood dying for a belief, and he realizes people die because of orders even if he’d personally prefer to find other routes, but Heero… well, he’d certainly struck to the heart of more than just their enemies hadn’t he.

That’s not what he’s talking about though.

No, what he actually means is, “I had a very firm line when it came to the attractiveness of unresponsive bodies. You’re ruining it. You don’t get to be hot and wilting away in my bed. Sleeping Beauty was my _least_ favorite fairy tale.” Heero’s fingers twitch and Trowa clicks his tongue before he’s properly registered the movement. “Don’t sass me; I’m not the one spread out on someone else’s bed like an offering of damaged goods.”

It’s another two weeks of slight flinching and movements behind Heero’s eyelids which while promising is all kinds of awkward when Trowa has to wash him because unconscious Heero seems torn between tightly grabbing the sleeves of Trowa’s sweater and valiantly trying to punch him with an open hand.

Cathy says he’s just trying to protect his womanly virtue.

Trowa would pretend to hate her if he didn’t find that absolutely hilarious.

And distressingly possible.

He’s done a fantastic job of ignoring it all after first week and a half, and he’s had this routine worked out for months so he doesn’t immediately notice the change when he starts to unravel the bandages around Heero’s chest. Heero’s arms actually twitch, which is a little different but not out of his new brand of ordinary so Trowa doesn’t bother checking the rest of him over as he gently traces around the healing scar. Heero’s torso actually twitches at that and Trowa clicks his tongue in well-formed habitual admonishment like he does with the cats when their being particularly touchy.

“Stop that. Honestly, you are the worst comatose patient I’ve ever had the misfortune to deal with. You’re not even supposed to move you little shit. You’re supposed to just lay there; you were doing great for the first five months or so. I was going to get you a medal and everything. Don’t get adventurous just because you’re bored.” Heero exhales sharply, enough that it messes with the fresh bandaging he’d been working on and he looks up sharply. Trowa is expecting a furrowed brow, maybe, slack mouth and parted lips and the hint of an expression that will probably lean toward in pain as Heero slowly forays back into consciousness.

That’s not what he gets.

Heero is staring at him, blue eyes open and lucid and not as fogged with pain as Trowa was maybe hoping for. He can see confusion though, understandable since this is not the tundra Heero would remember falling in, and he can see irritation and something else that’s churning in the depths of his eyes, an expression Trowa hopes isn’t going to turn into homicidal rage because that would just be the epitome of ungrateful.

He should probably give Heero a run-down of everything that’s happened, and maybe embellish some of the shakier details involving Heero’s travel and recuperations. He knows he should be checking him over for what he remembers, tell him about where he is and who is around that knows of his existence just so he doesn’t either kill Cathy or get poisoned eating something ill-advised. That’s not what he does.

“Decided dying wasn’t going to happen after all, then? You certainly took long enough.” That is, admittedly, probably not his best decision of all time. That ‘something that might be homicidal rage’ flashed in his eyes before Heero let his eyes slip shut and went limp again. “Well then. I hope that isn’t going to be a precedent of our future conversations.”

It is. Heero dips in and out of consciousness fast enough that most of the time Trowa doesn’t realize Heero can actually hear him until he speaks for the first time in a deep, scratchy, sleep-filled voice Trowa sort of wants to rub all over.

“You make a horrible nurse.”

“I’m the doctor,” Trowa protests. Heero doesn’t actually respond, but he does smirk and give a pointed look toward the entrance Cathy regularly uses so Trowa kind of has to concede the point. “Fine, but I’m a fantastic nurse.”

“No bedside manner,” Heero snipes. He’s out before Trowa can respond and that is nearly every kind of cheating so Trowa insults him for five minutes straight as he finishes his nurse-ly duties.

It takes some time, but they slowly fall into another routine as Heero relearns how to stay awake for a reasonable amount of time. It’s not all that different from his routine with comatose Heero, except now he sometimes gets to go on very short Heero-hunts because the guy has a tendency to flail out of his bed trying to do things he is strongly advised against doing. On the upside he’s getting better at it, Trowa found him all the way in the kitchen once.

He drugged Heero’s food as a reward. It’s probably a sign of progress in their relationship that Heero had only given him a pissy look for a few hours and ate his food with extreme caution for a few days.

There’s an interim of awkwardness when Trowa tries to give his final show. Trowa figures it’s his penance for forcing Heero to regularly interact with Cathy beyond blank stares and the occasional grunt, Trowa’s not sure if it’s an inability to talk to girls that makes him fall so still, if Trowa himself is the exception, or if Heero just has a healthy respect for people that throw knives for a living. Trowa would understand if it’s the latter, he has much the same respect.

“I wouldn’t want to meet your sister in an alley,” is what Heero finally confesses to, when Trowa is cleaning up the last of the bandages from their ritual of glare in defiance and struggle helplessly until exhaustion takes over innate obstinacy. To be fair, it’s more of a Heero ritual, Trowa is basically just a bystander.

“Careful,” he murmurs, “you’re not supposed to have a sense of self-preservation, remember?” Heero snorts and Trowa thinks it might be a step in the right direction. In retrospect, his life would probably have been easier if he’d just brained Heero with a brick right around then. Because apparently Heero wants to travel the goddamn world and offer up his life to a string of people he doesn’t know but has ostensibly emotionally crippled in his pursuits.

“You are an ungrateful bastard,” Trowa accuses, staring down at Heero who has mostly relaxed into the pillow and evened out his breathing.

“You know I’m still awake.” Heero’s murmur is tired, and it’s just another sign that Heero is nowhere near healthy enough for this trip, but he’d seen the look that was slowly becoming more and more prominent in Heero’s eyes and he knows that if he doesn’t help Heero the guy will kill himself trying to do it on his own. Granted he might be killed anyway, but…

“There are easier ways to say you didn’t want me to save you. Dragging me around Europe so you can be passive-aggressive about it isn’t terribly efficient.”

“This doesn’t really have anything to do with you,” Heero says. He looks confused and Trowa is faced abruptly, as he usually is, with the strange gaps of comprehension Heero has when communicating with other human beings. He wishes it wasn’t so damn hard to call Heero out on being an ass when the guy was almost always wearing either a blank face or looking oddly earnest.

His lack of response means he doesn’t talk Heero out of it, and generally resigns himself to following the other around after being passive-aggressively threatened by Cathy and watching Heero be aggressively threatened in turns. They’re not quite up to Sylvia Noventa levels of desperation when Heero confronts him.

“You find me physically attractive.” For a long moment Trowa wonders if it’s a question or demand; Heero can be frustrating for anyone to interpret.

“I do,” Trowa agrees, mostly because blunt honesty is something he finds humorous and, with Heero, will get to the point faster than trying to make him stumble through social niceties.

“You have not acted on it.” Heero points out, and there might a dash of confusion leaking into his tone. Or he’s frustrated. Trowa would have no sympathy if that were the case because Heero isn’t the one that had to deal with obnoxiously tempting and mildly horrifying eye candy in turns for months.

“I’m still not a fan of _Sleeping Beauty_ ,” Trowa mutters. “Look,” he continues before Heero can scowl and do something potentially damaging to himself, Trowa, their supplies, or their truck – in that order. “You were in a coma. Then you were too injured to move properly and I made a pastime of drugging you. Those are not the best situations for any kind of interest to be fostered. I’m a professional. Also, physical attraction does not mean I want to fuck you into the ground. And,” he continues, because he really doesn’t want to know what Heero intends to say to that. “You’re still technically injured and on pain medication. It could affect your judgment, or abilities.”

Trowa cannot say the raised eyebrow and mildly offended glint in deep blue eyes is in any way unexpected. He makes a pointed look to the bandages. Heero crosses his arms, shifts his stance slightly and smirks in a way that makes Trowa’s blood boil with something that probably isn’t anger as the offense fades to _challenge_.

“You realize you have my express permission to fuck me,” he drawls and it’s that kind of blunt deadpan that makes Trowa’s thoughts fizz out and his fingers twitch. Trowa is pretty sure Heero is the only person in this world he would never be able to fool. Aside from Cathy, as is her due. Unfortunately for Heero, Trowa is also pretty sure he is the only person Heero would never be able to fool. Aside from Duo, if the vague snippets Trowa had gained from their interactions in battle has been any indication.

“I’d take you up on it if you were offering.” He admits, biting down on his tongue when Heero’s brow furrows in confused frustration. People like Heero shouldn’t look adorable.

“I just gave you permission.”

“Yes,” Trowa agrees, “but you’ve shown no interest. Until now, I wasn’t even sure you’d noticed.” Well, he wasn’t sure Heero had understood it, anyway. Heero didn’t look any less confused though so Trowa contemplated their conversation quietly; trying to figure out the best route to take that wouldn’t necessarily cock-block him in the future. “Heero, why are you bringing this up now?”

“I owe you a debt. There’s not much to offer you that you could not acquire yourself.” And sometimes, Trowa reflects with a quiet simmering rage and embittered amusement, he really hates Heero’s blunt force tactics.

“I don’t accept sex as a payment, and I don’t believe in life debts.” He says clearly, enunciating carefully through the anger that’s tying his tongue and tensing his muscles. Life is too unpredictable to be indebted to a single person for so long, Captain had made it a point to teach Trowa plenty about human nature and that to honor the men people used to be sometimes it was necessary to abandon the people they’d become. As for the other thing, well some barter systems were universal, even when they shouldn’t be.

“But you are interested.”

“I’m interested in your desire, not the vessel it comes in,” Trowa clarifies. It’s startlingly true. There’s intensity to Heero that Trowa wants directed solely on him. He can’t fade away with Heero; the man has a terrifying sense of awareness. He feels like more than a backdrop when Heero looks at him, it’s a thrilling feeling that Trowa doesn’t want to give up. It’s a sign of how deeply invested in Heero Trowa has become. He should probably be more concerned about what that means for their future interactions.

“Why would that matter?”

“If I wanted to fuck a doll, I’d go out and buy one Heero.” Trowa answers. Heero gives him a very slow blink for that and Trowa huffs a laugh, the rising tension cutting in half. “Put another way,” he says, rising slowly because he can still see Heero doesn’t quite get it but more importantly there’s something dark Trowa can see lurking in the edges, something that hadn’t been there before this conversation. He’s careful when he approaches Heero, tilting his head up with a single finger under his chin and studying him carefully. “There’s basic interaction,” he says and leans down to press his lips gently against Heero’s letting them rest there for a beat for pulling back, “and there’s desire.”

The next kiss is more insistent, still gentle but Trowa moves his lips against Heero’s mouth, moving his hand to cradle Heero’s head and bury his fingers in that thick hair. He swipes his tongue across the other’s lips playfully, darting in when Heero’s lips open and forcing down a moan when he can taste the other. Sleeping later is going to be hell and he pulls back when Heero’s tongue starts to hesitantly play back. Heero’s cheeks are darkening in color and eyes are a murky blue Trowa hasn’t seen before.

“Let me know when you feel it,” Trowa says. He leaves before he can ruin it, because he was serious about what he’d said and he still remembers the line of reasoning Heero took to reach this point. If there was a single person and not just a set of circumstances that had convinced Heero that sex was something to trade Trowa was going to hunt them down and murder them creatively.

They don’t have sex. Instead they find Sylvia Noventa. And then Noin happens. And then Zechs happens. And the majority of time that Trowa isn’t insulting one or both of them he’s busy contemplating how to keep Heero relatively well. He does call Heero an ungrateful bastard again. The smirk Heero gifts him is not something Trowa regrets.

After that it’s a blur of space, and war, and not remembering things, Chang Wufei, and fencing which has officially become Trowa’s least favorite sport. Also, Zechs and the Libra, which basically affirmed every bad thing Trowa said about him in Antarctica. And Heero, who is starting to set a precedent for things Trowa isn’t sure he supports. They don’t meet up again until Trowa is in a colony hotel, alone with the need to sort through the end of the war and just breathe, so he can confirm who he is and what he’s done. Heero doesn’t knock but he does take care to announce his presence when he breaks in. He doesn’t even give the blade in Trowa’s hands any more than a cursory glance.

“I thought you’d be underground by now,” Trowa greets, setting the throwing knife gently on the end table by his bed. Heero had been one of the first to disappear, after a long talk with Relena that no one had been a spectator to. Some had suspected he’d hurt her feelings then, but Trowa doubted it. Relena had been resigned, but knowing and there was nothing false about the smile she’d shared with them. The pilots had gotten their own goodbyes as well, and Trowa wouldn’t be surprised if he learned that Heero’s day had been split between sleeping, Duo, and former Queen of the World.

“The same could be said for you,” Heero retorts and Trowa breathes deeply, oddly satisfied. He’d had a long phone call with Cathy when it was over, after some unnecessary but well-meaning nudging from Quatre. Subtle with the heart, that boy was not.

“I think I’ll head back to the circus,” Trowa answers. “I miss the lions.”

“Does your sister know you call her that?” Trowa huffs a laugh, green eye shimmering with good humor.

“If she does, I’m not the one that has to worry. How long are you staying?”

“Not long,” Heero admits. “There’s something I feel I have to do, before I look at the world as something other than a soldier.” There’s an odd look in Heero’s eyes, their deep blue turning murky with unbridled emotion as he traces his eyes over the length of Trowa’s body. It’s a sharp reminder of things Trowa hasn’t thought about, and makes Trowa’s blood boil in the same way as before.

“Oh?” he chokes out, fingers itching in a way they haven’t since Trowa returned to space. “Is it getting on your knees and thanking me? It should be.” Heero snorts, damn near slinking forward before smoothly falling to his knees by Trowa’s bedside, hands reaching across to slide firmly up Trowa’s sides, hiking his shirt up as they went.

“You have got to let that go,” Heero murmurs. “And I do want to thank you, but not for your terrible bedside manner and questionable humor.”

“ _My_ questionable humor?”

“I feel it, Trowa,” and just like that he can’t breathe, eyes wide as Heero slides up and onto the bed, straddling Trowa and leaning forward to bite up his neck. “Let me share my desire with you.”

“You could have phrased that better,” Trowa says absently, a quick gasp escaping him when Heero’s tongue licks a warm stripe along his jaw and then bites him in admonishment.

“Trowa,” he says. He sounds reluctantly amused because everything Heero does that doesn’t potentially involve his death is apparently reluctant.

“Mn?”

“Fuck me.”

Well. Nearly everything.

Trowa doesn’t waste any time, he’s been fucking waiting for this, and he’s quick to pin Heero underneath him, sucking at the smooth column of Heero’s neck with fervor that makes Heero gasp sharply and then moan.

“We’re going to need lube, you realize.” He comments, even as they strip Heero of his shirt and Trowa of his pants, the clothing barely hitting the ground before they’re kissing each other and running hands across lightly scarred skin and strong, mouth-watering muscles.

“When have I ever been unprepared?” Heero demands and that makes Trowa stop for just a moment to lean back and look down at the flushed pilot beneath him.

“Do…Do you really want me to answer that?” he asks, laughing when Heero rears up to bite at his lips. There’s a small bottle of lube and a condom packet in his hand when they separate and Trowa stares blankly at it for a long moment.

“It’s from the same pocket dimension Chang keeps his sword. Will you please get back to fucking me?”

“Pushy,” Trowa teases. He’s working his way slowly down Heero’s body, searching out the spots that make Heero twitch and moan and tense and go boneless methodically, alternating between the soft press of lips and hard firm strokes of his hands and dancing fingertips and wet tongue and sharp teeth. He’s only interrupted a few times, being pulled up so Heero can taste him and then fall limp when Trowa pushes back, licking his way into Heero’s hot mouth until Heero starts to tremble and their both gasping for breath when they part.

He’s not sure when his shirt is stripped but he remembers vividly peeling down Heero’s shorts to reveal the flushed and leaking cock underneath. He remembers nuzzling a trembling thigh and carefully reaching his tongue out to nudge the tip with his tongue, eyes flicking up at the strangled sound from Heero. The look Trowa had dubbed ‘probable homicidal rage’ was on full force, and there’s a sharp jolt that shoots down his spine when he realizes its unbridled _lust_ and Heero’s focused solely on him. His smirk is pleased when he licks a long line up only to circle the head and gently wrap his lips around it, swiping and flattening his tongue against it in turns.

He’s careful when he enters the first lubed finger, circling Heero before gently nudging in and taking a bit more of Heero in his mouth as he does so, and moving slowly until Heero groans his name and runs a shaking hand through Trowa’s hair, pushing back the bangs and spreading his legs wider in a display of pure want that makes Trowa moan. Heero jerks up at that and he curses when Trowa takes more in and starts to lightly suck instead of just lick, second finger sliding in to easily join the first. By the third finger Heero’s dick is nudging the back of Trowa’s throat and he’s damn near writhing, actually letting out a soft whimper when Trowa pulls back to look down at him.

Heero’s eyes are clenched shut, mouth parted to pant heavily as he shakes, spread out on Trowa’s bed and tossing his head. When he opens his eyes to glare blearily at him Trowa finds his prostate, and strokes firmly against the bundle of nerves to watch as Heero’s irises become a tiny ring of blue, swallowed by his expanding pupils.  The moan he lets out then is downright filthy and Trowa is kissing him hard and deep, trying to cement the taste of Heero in his head. He sooths Heero’s soft whimper when he removes his fingers, shakily tearing open the condom packet and rolling it on, damn near unable to open the cap on the lube and slick himself up when Heero arches up in silent plea – or demand, at this point it doesn’t matter.

The slide in is slow, and torturous, and they’re both near sobbing by the time Trowa slides all the way in with exertion and restraint in turns. It’s not something Trowa had let himself imagine, before when there was a damn real possibility it would never happen and Trowa couldn’t afford to disappear inside his own head for that long. He’s not sure he could’ve imagined this.

Heero’s tight around him, sinfully hot and quivering. There’s a soft sheen of sweat on his chest and Trowa doesn’t even pretend to stop, just licks a broad stripe up until he can suck on a dark nipple and feel Heero jerk up, gasp and stutter his hips as Trowa slides a little bit out and then back in. He’s falling apart, no hint of anything other than desire and the man behind the soldier. It’s a gratifying sight, or it would be if Trowa had the ability to think about anything other than the sound of Heero mewling in need, clenching around him, and the heat of his body and musky scent of sex.

Their pace, once Trowa starts to really move and not just bask inside of Heero, is smooth and fast. They don’t last much longer, they can’t, but it doesn’t seem to matter when Heero’s painting their stomachs milky white and tightening around Trowa’s dick. He only thrusts once into it before he’s shaking above Heero, an arm curled possessively around the shorter man’s shoulders and the other buried in his hair. They’re still for a long moment afterward, Heero limp and blissed out, staring up at him drowsily with a tiny smile on his face Trowa doesn’t think he notices, and Trowa curled over him, gently massaging the skin he can feel and trying not to collapse on top of him but also really not wanting to move.

He pulls out when Heero’s limbs start to move with something like coordination, biting back a groan at the immediate loss of heat and letting himself finally collapse next to the other.

“That,” Heero says muzzily, staring up at the ceiling, “was not one of my worst ideas.”

“ _Your_ ideas?”

“Hn,” Heero muttered, summoning up the tiniest of smirks when Trowa rolled onto his side. His touch wasn’t hesitant when he ran a gentle finger down Heero’s cheek, if there was a time to be body shy – which, honestly, _everyone_ knew Heero wasn’t body shy – it was long before now.

“You’ll be gone come morning, won’t you?” Trowa asked. He hadn’t forgotten what Heero had said, and far be it from Trowa to be the one to hold Heero back. The other looked hesitant for a brief moment before he rolled over and curled into Trowa’s chest, nuzzling his neck tiredly before nodding.

“I want to learn… I want to see the world as something other than a soldier. If I can,” he admitted softly.

“I’d offer our help,” Trowa says slowly, enjoying the feeling of running his fingers through Heero’s hair, enjoying the ability to do so. “But you need to do this alone, don’t you?” It’s not a question, and the more Trowa thinks about it the more he knows it’s true. If he stayed he’d have to listen to their advice, well-meaning as it is, and he’d probably feel compelled to do it. He needed to remember how to live, thrive, on his own instead of just survive and wait for the next orders. “When are you coming back?” Trowa asked. He wouldn’t be surprised if Heero didn’t have an answer.

“Give me a year. If I take longer than that without word I might send one of the others stir-crazy.”

“Is Duo that clingy?”

“He’s more concerned about the welfare of whatever place I hole up in. Honestly I only ever listen for key phrases or wait him out so he gets to the point faster.” Their laughter is warm, pleased and open and relieved and any number of things they haven’t internalized yet, haven’t expressed yet. They fall asleep in each other’s arms, and when Trowa wakes up the first time it’s to a gentle kiss on his forehead, and when he wakes up the second time his knife is missing.

Heero was unfortunately true to his word, and no one saw or heard from him an exactly one year. If it weren’t for Mariemaia, Trowa was pretty sure Heero wouldn’t have returned. Even so, no one was spectacularly surprised when they went to visit him in the hospital to find him gone, not even Sally who cursed up a blue streak and verbally eviscerated over half of the attending staff. Trowa hadn’t bothered to stay and watch most of the show, slipping away with an acknowledging nod to Duo and heading toward the roof. Heero hadn’t made it all the way up, resting on the platform a floor up, his head against the metal bars.

“If you tell them to drug my food, I can’t be held responsible for what happens to them.” Heero warns, eyeing him warily as Trowa huffs and drops down to sit next to him.

“Please, as if I would ever trust someone that isn’t me or Quatre to drug your food.” Trowa chides, hesitating for just a moment. His aborted movement must have been obvious, or maybe Heero just didn’t care, because the next thing he knows Heero is curled up against his chest, one arm around his waist and the other pressed gently against his neck. “Chang is expecting execution.”

“Une?” Heero asked body tense and eyes sharp. It’s a little gratifying to know that Heero is still doggedly loyal, even when he’s damn near killed by his former allies. He wonders what someone would have to do to lose that loyalty and is abruptly reminded of Captain, and honor and the monster that is human nature.

“I think it’s just Chang being fatalistic,” Trowa admits as much to soothe Heero as to inform him. The guy has been out of touch somewhere, he’s just as likely to have ignored the majority of their existence until he felt something wrong as he is to have followed every bit of news he could find. Heero relaxes, scoffing in something that might be exasperation.

“He’ll recover. We’ve all searched for purpose.” _And lost our way_ , Trowa thinks. Neither of them say it, neither of them has to. “Trowa, that feeling hasn’t faded.”

“Are you sure it’s meant to?” he asks, not-quite nervous but feeling a kick in his pulse all the same..

“I don’t think I want it to.” Heero confesses, curling a tiny bit closer.

“Are you going to stay?” Trowa asks wryly, not nearly as bitter as he’d been expecting. He really had made peace before Heero’s departure – no matter what doubts Cathy and later Quatre held.

“I think so. We’ve made our journeys alone. What do you think we can do with peace together?”

“The five of us?” Trowa clarifies, reluctant smile tugging at his lips. “Whatever it is, I’m sure it’ll be a grand show.”


End file.
